by A. S. Oren
My power over the water slips, and both things crash into the surface of the pond, sending more water at us. Rian does a flick of his wrist and all water soaking the ground and his hair returns to the pond, as if it never left it. "You're doing really well. At this rate I'll be teaching you how to pull water from the air and fighting with it in no time."
I place my hands on my hips. "Hell yeah, you will! I think I'm learning water and earth the fastest right now. Air is hard due to the way Bullock wants me to focus my magic, and I'm starting to get fire summoning better now that Mirren and I aren't full out fighting. I just wish he wasn't so cold still."
He nods. "I'm glad you two aren't coming home in bad moods now." His blue eyes glance around. "I'm going to tell you something no one but me knows about him, but you have to swear to not say anything to him or anyone else. I'm only telling you because I think it will help you understand him better."
I look around too. My heart picks up the pace. A secret that involves Mirren's life? Trying to get him to talk about anything other than training is like trying to pull a tooth that doesn't want to budge.
"Lusk was raised by his great grandparents."
I frown. "His GREAT grandparents?"
Rian nods. "When Lusk was six, his parents and grandparents went on a cruise around the world. He stayed with some family friends. The ship sank, and no one but the captain and some crewmembers made it. The only people in his family left alive were his great grandparents, who were both in their late eighties. So, as you can imagine, they weren't the best people to be raising a rowdy six-year-old. If they weren’t having him quietly read or do other none active things, he was being cared for by a German nanny who would only allow him to run track or study. He once mentioned to me that Spearwood was the first time he'd been around people his own age. I think that's why he has such a hard time connecting with people. He doesn't know how to act around anyone who isn't old and wrinkled. Add in the fact that you're a woman, and he's really in a conundrum."
I lean back on my heels and fold my arms over my chest. "Wow. I never knew he had such a childhood. I'm guessing they're rich, too?"
He nods. "The Mirren's are one of the oldest and richest families in the supernatural world, who aren't a royal line. I thought you knew that."
I shrug. Something about the name sounded familiar, I just figured it was common or something. "I got a C in history class growing up. I only ever paid enough attention to pass Zaria's tests. Once it was done, the information went out the window. Is that why he has such a problem with Outcasts?"
Rian shrug. "I guess. Growing up with old views, gave him old views too. I've never met his great grandparents, but they come from that era when Outcasts of all kinds were used as slaves for the rich."
I shake my head. I will never get why cultures always need to find someone or something to enslave. "Knowing this does help me understand him better. I just wish I could open a dialogue with him beyond the superficial stuff."
"Talk to him about painting or piano. Have him play you something. He usually hides in the room where Edgar put all the instruments."
I nod. "Ah yes, so that my hundreds of children can grow up to be little Mozarts and Bachs. "
We laugh together. Amr walks over to us. "It's time for my session with Rian. Jakki's waiting for you in the woods."
I take off my poncho. "Okay. Don't makeout the entire time."
Amr winks. "I can't make any promises."
At least Rian has accepted the Fold idea. Now I just need to learn more about Mirren, from him. Who would’ve thought, raised by his great grandparents. I can’t even imagine what that would be like. Edgar made sure I had kids my age around, so I wouldn’t turn out socially stunted.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Day Thirteen
Paden leads the way to where he wants to train me today. I frown, I like our normal spot better. "Paden, why are we so out in the open? We normally train in the woods, so that we can have some fun afterward." I bump him in his side with my hip.
He chuckles. "Just wait." He watches the sky.
I stare at it with him. "For?"
A pair of hands go over my eyes. The scent of cigarettes and the musky aroma of ocean soap fill my nose. "Dante!" I lift his hands off my eyes and turn to look up at his face.
His amber eyes don't shine as he smiles at me. What's wrong? What did his father do now? "Bonjour, Fire."
I take hold of his hand. "Why didn't you tell me you were coming back? I've been texting you, but haven't heard anything. But I figured it was your father being a dick again, so I didn’t worry too much."
He kisses me on the head. "I wanted to surprise you. And you know how my father is. Never letting me have time to myself, and wanting my phone put away. I read every single one though."
I turn and shove Paden in the shoulder. "I can't believe you didn't slip and tell me he was coming back today."
He laughs. "I'm not Mav, Lon. I can keep a secret."
Dante chuckles. "Why do you think I only told you?"
I clap. "I'm so happy right now!" I stand on my toes to give him a quick kiss. "I've missed you so much!"
"Je tu ai manqué aussi , l'amour ." He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes.
He missed me too. I smile. I touch his arm, searching for the emotions in his magic. He's so sad and scared?
Paden clears his throat. "I'm going to head back to the house. We can do an extra hour of training tomorrow.”
He walks off before I can agree. I guess he thinks we want to be alone. Dante takes a long drag before readjusting his bag on his shoulder. "So Edgar built you a house?"
I take a step closer to him. He's right in front of me, but he may as well be a thousand miles away still. He blows out a stream of smoke as I rub his hand with my thumb. "Our house. Edgar built it for us and our future children."
He pulls his hand from mine at the subject of kids. Maybe he doesn't want any? "It looks big enough for a couple of generations to live here at once.”
I turn my back on him to stare at the mansion. "It is. There's rooms everywhere. I was thinking we could turn one of them into a darkroom for you. Either in the basement somewhere, or blackout some windows." With hesitation I glance over my shoulder at him.
Dante holds up a hand. "Don't move, stay exactly as you are." The cigarette hangs from the corner of his mouth as he takes off his backpack and kneels on the ground. He takes out his camera to get it ready. I hold my pose. When he sees something he likes, he gets obsessed with capturing it on old film.
Standing, he takes a few shots, before moving and taking more. I follow him with just my eyes moving.
"The way the sun is hitting your hair. Tu êtes belle , Fire. Tu prenez mon souffle."
A smile spreads across my lips. He called me beautiful and said I take the breath from him. "I take your breath away, huh?"
"Every second I'm in your presence, always and forever." He adjusts the lens and I take the chance to ease into another pose. He won't be mad now that he's captured whatever he saw on film.
Today he has contained his long, ebony hair in a braid that goes to the middle of his shoulder blades. Within my Fold, he has the longest hair and I wouldn't change it for anything. I just wish he’d leave it free more often, so I can run my fingers through it. "Follow me. I have somewhere secluded that would be the perfect spot to take pictures at this time of day." I twirl in the baby blue dress that Jakki asked me to wear this morning, so that he could paint my nails to look like the sky and clouds. I'm thankful for his choice now. It will make welcoming Dante home a lot easier.
Dante smirks. He kneels again and takes a small tin out of his bag. He puts out the butt inside and shakes it around. He hates to just toss them anywhere. "Well, my camera and I would love to see this place. Especially if the lighting is good." Picking up his bag again, he follows me into the woods. "I can't believe you got to grow up in a place like this."
I face him and walk backwards over a
small log; he snaps another picture of me. He must have thousands now. His interest in photography grew into an obsession when we were sixteen and he took an elective on it. "Well, where did you grow up? You never talk about home. I don't even know your father's name."
"Jarrel. I never told you that? I grew up all over, but I spent a good portion of my childhood in New York, by the ocean. But even there, my mother refused to speak anything but French, so I was often her translator. At least until the end."
My eyes stare at the ground; I can't stand the way his eyes harden at the mention of her. She killed herself when he was thirteen, due to being forced to become a woman and marry his father. I’ll never understand Royals and their need to keep the Ancestor line pure. Dragon genes overpower most other shifters and magical beings anyway. "How was your trip with him?"
Dante lowers the camera, but we continue to walk as I lead him to the place where we can be unseen and mostly unheard. "It was fine. The same coldness came from him as always. Typical trip."
I frown. He's lying. He won't look at me. What happened on the trip that has him so distant? With a shake of my head, I dispel the urge to prod him about what's bothering him. He'll close up on me if I do that; he's not like Paden, who needs prodding to feel safe to say something. Dante will tell me when he's ready. It doesn't usually take him long, but he does need to build up to the talk himself.
“I spoke with your brother. Through a dream.” We enter the clearing. Thick trees surround us from all sides and several fallen logs and boulders make up the centre. Sunlight streams down on us over the tops of the trees. I brought him here at the perfect time of day.
“Lean on at log over there. And, I know. I got your text about it.”
I go to the log that rest diagonally on a large boulder. Raised off the ground just enough that I can sit on it and still have my bare feet rest in the soft padding of pine needles and dirt.
He nods. “Put your hair to your left shoulder.”
I flip my hair to the other side. “Why didn’t you reply to any of my texts? I know how your father is, but the entire time? You couldn’t find a moment before bed to text me back?”
He sighs and lowers his camera. His liquid amber eyes gaze at the trees behind my back. “I just wasn’t able to. By the time I got into bed, all I wanted to do was sleep. I’m sorry. We’re together now, right?”
I frown. “Yes.” I shake my head. I shouldn’t have even brought that up. I need to turn this around. With a grin on my lips, I pull my dress up to reveal more thigh. “How much did you miss me?”
He takes more shots; a small smile pulls at the corners of his lips. “More than you could ever know, Fire.”
My pink tongue wets my lips. I pull up the dress more. “How much do you think I missed you?”
He takes a few more shots, filling my stomach with bubbles of excitement. He probably has hundreds of naughty pictures of me, but he says they're only for him. I haven't seen them, and I've never heard the others talk about them, and Maverick couldn't keep a secret if his life depended on it.
Dante lower the camera and stares at me with both his eyes. "Why don't you show me how much you've missed me?"
I readjust myself on the log and spread my legs so that he can get a glimpse of my lacy, white panties. Our games of foreplay tend to be slow, but in the end, they're so worth it.
His adam's apple bobs in his throat as he takes a knee to get some lower pictures. I run a finger from my left knee up to my inner thigh. "I hope you never have to leave again, because I don't think my panties could handle always being so wet at the thought of you being inside me, but not being able to have you.”
The camera clicks more, taking rapid shots. At this point, he usually says something in French, at least he has in the past. But he stays silent. I long to ask him why he's so far away.
I hike the dress up the rest of the way to reveal the intricate material. With a long stare into the camera, I run to fingers over my pussy, through the panties. It's such a thrill to have him take pictures of me whilst in this state.
He remains silent. It's him talking dirty to me in French that always turns me on more. But today, he's just not here. I hold a hand out to him. Maybe he doesn't want to play the voyeur game today. "Come here, I want to kiss you."
He rests his camera down on his bag and, with sluggish feet, closes to the distance between us. He kneels on the ground. The log may be perfect height for me, but way too short for him. While kneeling, his head comes to the same height as mine. I pull on his brown leather jacket and bring him into a kiss. He’s slow to respond, but soon wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me close.
My fingers rub the back of his neck. I break the kiss to trace the line of stubble along his jawline to his ear. He tilts his head to the side and groans as I take his earlobe between my lips.
"Fuck, Fire."
He pulls away and kisses his way down my neck with his hot lips. I cup his head with my hand. Sun god. He never fails at exciting my every nerve whilst kissing my body. His fingers tug the strap of my dress off my shoulder and pulls it down enough to release one of my breasts. His lips encompass the tight peak of flesh and he sucks hard.
I moan. "Sun god, I've missed you." I push his jacket off his shoulders.
He pulls away, but instead of dropping his jacket to the ground, he heaves it back onto his shoulders. I frown. Did he forget that at least some of our clothes need to be off to make this more fun?
"Um, you can leave your jacket on, if you want. I just figured it would be more fun without it."
He stands and steps away from me. "Désolé, Fire. But I can't do this."
My brain can't wrap around his words. "I have a nice bedroom, we can go there, or the Cabin."
He shakes his head. "No. I can't have sex with you."
I figured this might happen sometime when we were all old and need those little blue pills, but not now. "Oh. Well, okay. Maybe later?"
He rubs his hands over his face. "I cheated on you, Avalon. I slept with someone else. That's why I haven't been texting you back. I've felt guilty."
Tingles invade my body as all the blood rushes away from my head. I don't think I heard him correctly. It's not possible. He's in my Fold. I only sleep with them and they only sleep with me, or maybe each other if that's what would make them happy. I pull the strap of my dress back up. I don't want to be so exposed in front of him anymore. "What did you just say?"
"I didn't mean to. My father arranged a marriage for me and forced me to spend time with her. She looks like you, and one night--"
I hold up my hand. Dark clouds roll in overhead; the sun hides behind the black clouds, shrouding our little area in shadow.
I don't want to hear it. I don't want him to tell me anything. With not so much as a glance in his direction, I walk by him.
Thunder rumbles from overhead.
"Avalon, mi amour, wait. Let me explain." He fingers grasp at my hand, but I pull away.
I run out of the woods, just as lighting strikes a few feet ahead of my path. I stop as the scorch mark spreads across the ground, igniting the grass in flames. The clouds open up, and rain pours down. My hair and dress become soaked in seconds as the flames drown in the assault.
Paden and Maverick run out of the house toward me.
"Avalon!" Dante's voice carries over the howl of the rain and wind.
I continue forward toward the boys. The ones that haven't just cut me to my core. The rain hides the hot tears that roll down my cheeks.
Maverick reaches me first; he rests his hands on my shoulders and looks me over. "What's wrong? We felt your distress from inside the house."
Dante catches up to us. "Avalon, please, listen."
His hand goes to mine again. I pull away from him. "Don't fucking touch me!"
He wipes the rain out of his face. "I don't have a choice."
I glance at him over my shoulder. "You always have a choice, Dante. You just chose a different path from mine."
; I move out of Maverick's touch and head for the house.
Paden stops me. "What happened?"
I shut my eyes to block out the pain and shake my head. "Ask him."
The back door slams behind me as I enter the house. How could this happen? Why did this happen? The thunder continues to roll overhead, shaking the windowpanes.
Everyone, except for Paden and Maverick, sit around the table eating lunch. Silence falls over the room as they peer at me and then outside. Amr stands. "Avvi, are you okay? You're making it rain again."